LawrencetheMDer
Active member
A friend’s wife heard all the stories about finding diamond rings while metal detecting. She knew someone who knew someone who metal detects and her closet was full of, not clothes, but gold and diamond rings. She wanted to find “Hers”.
Of course, any seasoned MDer knows how hard it is to find a gold ring, let alone a diamond ring. For example, I just met a novice MDer who has been MDing the beach religiously for 6 months and has yet to find a gold ring. “I found silver rings, silver rings with diamonds and those Tungsten rings but no gold!”, he told me. But my friend’s wife persisted even with my warnings ("You might find a few coins."). She wanted to try it so I obliged.
We met at a beach at 8am; I drove an hour. She drove 15 minutes. I had already hunted for about 1 ½ hrs before she arrived at 8am. Surprisingly, during my short solo hunt I found a heavy silver ring (5.9g) and a “Love” gold band (4.4g). I thanked her for being punctual and introduced her to the Manticore, a very light machine, that I programmed to be effortless for her to use. I also made the controls and signals (one) easy to understand and we practiced with coins, bottle caps and tabs on the beach. I also introduced her to a Pointer and showed her how it worked.
I had a number of belts for a junk bag and pointer and, luckily had one that fit her large frame. As she started metal detecting in earnest, her first challenged soon emerged; being able to walk and swing the detector at the same time. It seemed to be one-or-the-other; swing or walk but not both. She compromised by moving the detector about a foot side to side while walking. I tried to encourage her to take larger swings, but I guess she would have fallen down. I don’t know for sure but she didn’t change her swing. Nevertheless, walking in the sand was also an issue.
She wasn’t able to take small steps. I tried to explain to her that since the coil is 11” wide that her footsteps should be about 10”, “just shuffle your feet”, in order to have good coverage. I told her the sand in front of her was just as valuable as the sand down the beach so no need to rush. However, because the sand was soft and she was rather wide and, I guess had small feet, she had a tendency to fall over when she took small steps. Much like a wide building needs an appropriately wide foundation to hold it up, she needed a wide stride or stance to keep her frame up. But this is pure speculation.
Trying to localize a target was one of her biggest challenges, besides walking and swinging. I tried to explain to her that the loudest signal meant the target was in the middle of the coil and that as the coil moved off the target that the sound would decrease and stop once the coil was no longer over the target. Also, the deeper the target in the sand the fainter the signal. We practiced, but she never “got” it. On several occasions I found her with several partially dug holes for the same target. Even when she was able to dig-up a target I had to localize it in the dug sand. She and the detector were not as One.
Another issue was the light weight travel sand scoop I gave her. It was too heavy. She drug it behind her for a while but decided to carry it on her shoulder, but it hurt. Recovering a target was a whole different issue.
I was buzzing around her like a bee, metal detecting, while keeping an eye on her and returning whenever she had a target. Once she hit a target and I confirmed it, first she tried to scrape sand with the scoop, toward her. I again showed her how to push the scoop into the sand with her foot. Holding the detector in one hand and using the scoop with the other hand was too much. No such luck. She needed to put the detector down in order to use both hands to use the sand scoop. Here is where the wireless headphones would have benefited her, but the Manticore was equipped with my waterproof wired headphones. Using 2 hands, she dug shallow holes and, again, I instructed her to point the scoop down more to go deeper. Her short arms may have limited her ability to go deep. “No, no, don’t dig the hole wider, once you know where the target is just go deeper”...the hole widens more….
“My wrists and arms hurt”, she said looking at me with puppy eyes as she rested on a rented lounge chair. “Switch arms”, I said; “I’ve been doing that already”, she replied. We made our way back to her car.
“I think you were successful on your very first metal detecting adventure”. “You found several coins on this well hunted beach and you lasted almost 2 hrs”, I said. In fact, she lasted 10 times longer than my wife (10 minutes) and almost twice as long as my close friend, Bruce, who lasted about an hour. “It was a lot harder then I thought it would be! How long do you do this?”, she asked. “Four hours, usually”, I replied. She thanked me for taking her metal detecting as she looked over her finds [4 cents and a quarter].
“We’ll have to do it again”, I said, as she jumped in her car and speed off for a hardy meal. I returned to the beach for 1 more hour of hunting.
Happy Hunting
Pics: 14k gold "Love" ring (4.4g, VID 13 on Equinox 800). Silver 925 ring before and after cleaning (5.93g, 21 on Equinox 800). Silver Peace ring.
Of course, any seasoned MDer knows how hard it is to find a gold ring, let alone a diamond ring. For example, I just met a novice MDer who has been MDing the beach religiously for 6 months and has yet to find a gold ring. “I found silver rings, silver rings with diamonds and those Tungsten rings but no gold!”, he told me. But my friend’s wife persisted even with my warnings ("You might find a few coins."). She wanted to try it so I obliged.
We met at a beach at 8am; I drove an hour. She drove 15 minutes. I had already hunted for about 1 ½ hrs before she arrived at 8am. Surprisingly, during my short solo hunt I found a heavy silver ring (5.9g) and a “Love” gold band (4.4g). I thanked her for being punctual and introduced her to the Manticore, a very light machine, that I programmed to be effortless for her to use. I also made the controls and signals (one) easy to understand and we practiced with coins, bottle caps and tabs on the beach. I also introduced her to a Pointer and showed her how it worked.
I had a number of belts for a junk bag and pointer and, luckily had one that fit her large frame. As she started metal detecting in earnest, her first challenged soon emerged; being able to walk and swing the detector at the same time. It seemed to be one-or-the-other; swing or walk but not both. She compromised by moving the detector about a foot side to side while walking. I tried to encourage her to take larger swings, but I guess she would have fallen down. I don’t know for sure but she didn’t change her swing. Nevertheless, walking in the sand was also an issue.
She wasn’t able to take small steps. I tried to explain to her that since the coil is 11” wide that her footsteps should be about 10”, “just shuffle your feet”, in order to have good coverage. I told her the sand in front of her was just as valuable as the sand down the beach so no need to rush. However, because the sand was soft and she was rather wide and, I guess had small feet, she had a tendency to fall over when she took small steps. Much like a wide building needs an appropriately wide foundation to hold it up, she needed a wide stride or stance to keep her frame up. But this is pure speculation.
Trying to localize a target was one of her biggest challenges, besides walking and swinging. I tried to explain to her that the loudest signal meant the target was in the middle of the coil and that as the coil moved off the target that the sound would decrease and stop once the coil was no longer over the target. Also, the deeper the target in the sand the fainter the signal. We practiced, but she never “got” it. On several occasions I found her with several partially dug holes for the same target. Even when she was able to dig-up a target I had to localize it in the dug sand. She and the detector were not as One.
Another issue was the light weight travel sand scoop I gave her. It was too heavy. She drug it behind her for a while but decided to carry it on her shoulder, but it hurt. Recovering a target was a whole different issue.
I was buzzing around her like a bee, metal detecting, while keeping an eye on her and returning whenever she had a target. Once she hit a target and I confirmed it, first she tried to scrape sand with the scoop, toward her. I again showed her how to push the scoop into the sand with her foot. Holding the detector in one hand and using the scoop with the other hand was too much. No such luck. She needed to put the detector down in order to use both hands to use the sand scoop. Here is where the wireless headphones would have benefited her, but the Manticore was equipped with my waterproof wired headphones. Using 2 hands, she dug shallow holes and, again, I instructed her to point the scoop down more to go deeper. Her short arms may have limited her ability to go deep. “No, no, don’t dig the hole wider, once you know where the target is just go deeper”...the hole widens more….
“My wrists and arms hurt”, she said looking at me with puppy eyes as she rested on a rented lounge chair. “Switch arms”, I said; “I’ve been doing that already”, she replied. We made our way back to her car.
“I think you were successful on your very first metal detecting adventure”. “You found several coins on this well hunted beach and you lasted almost 2 hrs”, I said. In fact, she lasted 10 times longer than my wife (10 minutes) and almost twice as long as my close friend, Bruce, who lasted about an hour. “It was a lot harder then I thought it would be! How long do you do this?”, she asked. “Four hours, usually”, I replied. She thanked me for taking her metal detecting as she looked over her finds [4 cents and a quarter].
“We’ll have to do it again”, I said, as she jumped in her car and speed off for a hardy meal. I returned to the beach for 1 more hour of hunting.
Happy Hunting
Pics: 14k gold "Love" ring (4.4g, VID 13 on Equinox 800). Silver 925 ring before and after cleaning (5.93g, 21 on Equinox 800). Silver Peace ring.
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